Dynamic range measured by Photons To Photos: Sony A9III is surprisingly good!

Bill Claff from PhotonsToPhotos measured the Sony A9III dynamic range and there are quite some surprising aspects:

  • Except of the Base ISO 100 and the ISO 8000 the A9III is more or less on par with the previous A9II in terms of dynamic range performance
  • It also beats the Nikon Z8 at any ISO except again base ISO and ISO 800.
  • The Sony A7rV is the Dynamic Range king but from ISO 800 the A7rV and the A9III performs the same!

Bill writes:

  • Base ISO is 250 due to low full well capacity (FWC).
  • High conversion gain (HCG) is available from ISO800.
  • Maximum PDR is quite good considering the base ISO settings.
  • Low-light ISO is also quite impressive.
  • Noise reduction (NR) is baked into RAW at all ISO settings, and is most noticeable from ISO 16000.
  • In the Fixed Pattern Noise (FPN) test, the I LCE-9M3 showed good results. Low values ​​are better than high values.

In summary:
The A9III performs much better than the “Internet” lead us to believe. In fact if you shoot at any ISO expect ISO 100 and maybe ISO 800 you can expect top class results with all the extra benefits that rolling shutter gives you (fast readout, no banding, no rolling shutter artifacts, flash sync at any speed).

Sony A9III at BHphoto. Amazon. Adorama. FotoErhardt. Fotokoch. Calumet. WexUK.

Sony A9III review by ThePhoBlographer: “the single best camera that Sony has made thus far”


Sony A9III at BHphoto. Amazon. Adorama. FotoErhardt.

ThePhoBlographer reviewed the A9III and focused particularly on the Flash photography aspect:

By far, the Sony a9 III is the single best camera that Sony has made thus far. Nearly every issue that I’ve had with the company’s cameras over the years has been resolved in some way or another. Ergonomically speaking, this is the most perfect Sony camera I’ve held. It truly feels like the evolution of a Minolta camera for mirrorless. It’s simple enough to use, and anything that you really need can be wired to a button or two. But perhaps the greatest innovation is the global shutter. While I miss the fact that I could physically feel the shutter, I’ll accept that it comes with new technology that makes strobism even better. If you’re a photographer that uses a lot of off-camera flash, then this is the single best camera you can get on the market right now.

Matt Granger reviews the new Sony a9 III and likes it a lot

Above you can watch Matt Granger’s review of the new Sony A9III.

And ThePhoBlographer reports about a “Sony a9 III Secret Setting You Need to Know About”:

It’s called Flash Timing Setting — and it’s something others haven’t talked about. The sweet spot is to set it to 400 and above.
With this setting activated, the camera and a strobe, like the Profoto B10 I used, can shoot pretty seamlessly

Sony A9III at BHphoto. Amazon. Adorama. FotoErhardt. Fotokoch. Calumet. WexUK.
Sony 300mm at BHphoto. Amazon. Adorama. FotoErhardt. Fotokoch. Calumet. WexUK.
Sonny A9III Vertical Grip at BHphoto. Amazon. Adorama. FotoErhardt. Fotokoch. Calumet. WexUK.

Surprise results from the CineD Lab test: The Sony A9III is the best Sony Alpha camera to date in video mode in terms of dynamic range!

CineD put the Sony A9III to rigorous testing and the conclusion is quite a surprise:

The Sony Alpha 9 III displays fantastic results in our lab test. Rolling shutter by the very nature of the global shutter design is non-existent (effectively 0ms) – the best we have and will ever see for full-frame sensors. It cannot get better from here.

Dynamic range using our Xyla21 chart and IMATEST analysis is average when compared to other full-frame consumer cameras. But as is so often the case, IMATEST results are only one piece of the puzzle looking at the dynamic range of a camera. It basically gives a feel for how noisy images are at the various Xyla stops (patches). And here it can be clearly seen that the global shutter sensor is definitely noisier than its CMOS full-frame counterparts seen in other consumer full-frame cameras.

But Sony applied some magic to the image pipeline including the codecs, as the fine noise of the sensor is conserved in the final image and shadows can be massively pushed in post without ugly larger blotches of noise. This results in a superb 9 stops of exposure latitude with some room towards 10, making it the best Sony Alpha camera to date in video mode in terms of dynamic range! It is also the best consumer full-frame camera in that regard.

What a surprise – all this from a global shutter sensor! Well, as mentioned at the beginning of the article, times are a’changin …

That supports the other findings from youtubers like Gerald Undone. The A9III has quite “workable” files where you can recover quite a lot of information.

Sony A9III at BHphoto. Amazon. Adorama. FotoErhardt. Fotokoch. Calumet. WexUK.